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Sunday, September 20

Hard Charging Spaniard Wins First European Tour Title

“I WAS SO FAR BACK I wasn’t thinking about winning. I just tried to play a shot at a time and today it worked out really, really good.”

That was Rafael Cabrera Bello talking after winning the Austrian Golf Open at Fontana Golf Club on the outskirts of Vienna, his first European Tour title.

And Cabrera Bello was exactly right. Why would he dare entertain any thoughts of winning? The Spaniard was eight shots back going into the final round. Speaking of eight, Cabrera Bello had also missed eight of his last 10 cuts. He wasn’t exactly a favorite to win—or even to play on the weekend.

So, what happened?

The 25-year-old shot a 60 in the final round. (He had an eagle putt for 59 on the 18th green.) Cabrera Bello humbled the course, the field—even himself—and was in a state of shock when the tournament ended and he realized he had won the thing.

“It’s just amazing—I played the best golf of my life and I can’t believe it,” he said.

You could I guess look at it this way, if he had played an even-par round, he would not even have finished in the top-20 in the final listings. Surely that has got to be one of the most incredible victories. I wonder what poor Benn Barham must be thinking. He did all the hard work through the week, kept himself in contention and in the end let it slip by. The par-5 18th was a hole most players managed a birdie on, so even though he was a shot back heading into the final hole, it was quite within his grasp to manage that birdie. But then, I guess nothing is guaranteed when you are heading into the final hole of a tournament with everyone else having finished and only you are left. He could not manage to birdie a single par-5 on the final day and a two-under was never going to be good enough, not when a man was intent on charging up the leaderboard like a raging bull. And look at the difference. The next best round on the day was a five-under. Clearly he had performed head and shoulders better than the others. Fantastic win for the Spaniard!

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